CHAPTER TEN—SLITHERING REACH

Never before had so many Scorpions been so far from Darshuun. Originally created by Darius Al Hassarani, the Scorpions were an elite fighting force, and the Blades, being the best among them all.

In some ways, they had the characteristics of the hashashins of Ashahnai. Strong, agile, and adept with blades, the Scorpions were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, and off. They were no slouches in the stealthy arts, and had been used by Darius to conduct many such missions during his many wars to expand the empire.

Now, that seemed to all be different, but Abbaas didn’t mind. It was his place to defend the empire, and that meant taking orders by the sultan—now the sultanah Shai’na, the wife of Darius’ deceased brother.

Abbaas walked the camp, looking at the boats on the shore, at the many black tents pitched up to give the men safe places to sleep in the night, and among them all were crackling camp fires, meat and grains and plenty to eat.

There was no alcohol. Scorpions did not drink alcohol. It was a weakness for a man to have cravings of any sort, especially in a war, combat or assassination situation. Only water and juice for the Scorpion legion.

There were over a hundred ships in their small army of ten thousand men, and their tents spanned the length of many flat islands that were overlooked by hills and palms as the isles in this places formed a cascade of straights not easy to navigate.

It took time.

He joined the other commanders inside their tent, which was guarded by no less than six Scorpions—stow stations on each side of the square structure. The men sat on the carpets. At their center was a square wooden table with a small brazier in the middle that gave off dry heat.

“Abbaas,” Badru said, looking up. “Where have you been?”

Badru had short greying hair and steel-grey eyes. He was lean—perhaps too lean for a Scorpion, but as a commander, he would not be needed for heavy work.

“I was making my rounds about the camp—making certain everything was in order.”

“And?” asked Daut?

Daut was a stern faced man with a scar across his lips. He had taken the wound battling the Hashamel assassins sent by king Hor’ad. With thick arms, he kept a mighty scimitar sheathed at his belt.

“Everything is fine,” Abbaas said, though as the words came out of his mouth, he felt a shiver run up his spine. When the high vizier and the rest of the commanders were taken away on that giant monster’s back, no one knew what to do, and indeed, they were still debating the matter here in the tent.

They nodded.

Also around the table was Kazem and Shahzad. Kazem was ancient by the rest of the men’s standards and Kazem was the youngest of them all, really almost a boy.

“Sit,” Daut said, gesturing for Abbaas to do so.

He dipped his chin and sat down. The smoke from the brazier was feint as it went into his nostrils. The sea outside provided a constant noise that would make it difficult should there be any spies trying to listen in on their conversation.

Surely the Florencians had them.

“Are we in agreement?” asked Badru. “There can be no dissent among any of us. If our commanders should return unharmed, they should know that we all took part of what was done out of the best interest for the army. We cannot stay here and our water rations are getting low.”

Kazem narrowed his eyes. “All in favor.” He raised his hand.

Badru raised his, so did Shahzad and Daut. Abbaas was the last one, though he did so hesitantly. Originally he had been the one to suggest waiting for their commanders to return. High vizier Ali was a good leader, and his friends and brother were also high respected. It was Master Shiro who had the ear of the jinni.

“Good,” Kazem. “Then we will send our detachments into the isles to look for water and if possible, food. If the worst should happen and we become trapped in this place, we will want to keep our food stores safe.

Daut nodded as Shazahd glanced to the older men uncertainly. As a captain in the sultanah’s Scorpion regiments, he was somewhat newer.

Quietly they got up, ready to go about their tasks—which was to organize men and send out parties to do what the high vizier and the others failed to do when that monster took them.

Abbaas stepped out of the tent and looked up into the sky as raindrops began to fall. In the distance the black clouds of the night sky alighted with bright lightning that cracked and rolled over the horizon.

He would have shivered for the cold of the wind and the rain, but he was already too hot in his pantaloons and overcoat. He sighed.

“What is the matter?” asked Badru as he stayed behind while the others filed further into the camp. “We are doing the right thing. I know it is dangerous—but by the gods, it is the right thing to do. We must take care of the army.”

Nodding, Abbaas grunted his ascent to the to the other man.

“Now come,” said Badru, “organize your men. We will meet on the rowboats in the staging area.”

“All right,” he said, and the other man left him.

Looking up into the sky, Abbaas squinted as raindrops landed on his face. Why did it have to start raining now? Then he glanced off toward the higher hills where the water separated those tree-laden isles. And where are you, high vizier?

With the commanders gone, Abbaas was finding it impossible to have confidence. Should they not return, would they press on with the plan, or would they return home?

Even if they decided to return home, which would spell certain doom for the empire, that would mean sailing back up the Eiphr through the territory of those savages that had taken several of their men hostage in an attempt to sacrifice them to some dark magical rituals.

Oh, the army did not know that. The could not know that, for the sake of morale, but Abbaas and the other captains were aware of exactly what had happened. Though most of the men had been returned to them due to the valiant efforts of Commander Shiro and the help of his jinni companion, and that of the high vizier, some of the men had still died.

With a heavy sigh he stepped forward across the sand. Now there was a thin layer of water crusting the top, but through it, the sand was still bone dry and soft. His feet sank with every step as his personal guards followed him to the encampment of the Third Scorpion Horde.

Abbaas’ personal symbol was that of a white scorpion insignia with three red slashes upon a black flag. The pinions flapped and whipped in the coming wind and the insignias also adorned the sides of the tents of the Third Horde.

He paused for a moment and turned to his guards, Zakaria and Naazeer. “Keep your eyes open, stay alert.”

“Of course,” said Naazeer. “But Captain… are you concerned about something?”

“It is not common knowledge yet that our leaders were taken away by that mountainous monster.”

“Do we know that?” asked Zakaria as he thumbed the hilt of his scimitar at his side. “Could it be that they did that on purpose?”

Abbaas looked at the elite Blade for a moment. “I do not know,” he said, shaking his head. “We have to be prepared for the worst, but I hope to the gods that what happened with them was intentional. Still, the army does not know, so keep it that way.”

They both nodded and Abbaas moved toward his tents where the Third Horde was situated. Navigating the many roads and isles was, at times ,difficult, because the men had their tiny cook fires assembled in the sand and often sat around them.

Getting by was difficult. Would that he had more space to put all the tents, but the islet they were on was little more than a sandbar with some turtlenut trees and there hadn’t been enough space.

He went to the command tent of the Third Horde and the guard standing there saluted Abbaas and opened the flap for him. He thanked the guard and strode him. “We are leaving,” he said without preamble of fanfare.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Captain Abbaas?”

“It has been decided,” he said. “We are two-hundred and fifty Scorpions further in to the isles to look for water and food sources. Assemble fifty men and meet me at the rowboats.

“Yes, Captain. But…”

“What is it?” asked Abbaas.

“The commanders…? vizier Ali…?”

He drummed up the suitable lie that he and the other horde captains had decided on earlier. “They went on a scouting errand.”

“But that monsters, Captain. Surely—“

“Do not forget,” he interrupted, “that the venerable and estimable jinni Jessamine is with them. Even Commander Shiro is a strange man that we do not understand, much less the jinni who accompanies him. They have great power.”

The man looked at him uncertainly, but then decided to accept the lie. “Of course, Captain.”

“Make sure that the men know that,” he added. “Of course.”

“Good. I will meet you with the others at the rowboats presently. Bring good men with strong arms and a quartermaster and requisitions officer.”

“I will, Captain.” With a final nod, Abbaas left the tent where Zakaria and Naazeer were waiting. “Come,” he said.

They filed in behind him.

Abbaas had never had Blades at his personal command before. They had been the elite of the sultan’s guard, now they were used as elite soldiers in military combat. A waste, he thought. But we need them in this war.

He turned and went down an alley with tents facing him on both sides, then he turned left after walking a few dozen paces when his foot hit a rope on the ground. He looked down, surprised at its tautness and springiness.

It was… brownish red. He frowned, stepped upon it again to feel at it. The rope was moving toward his left and he glanced to the tent that the rope went under. By the lights of the braziers and torches outside, he didn’t have a lot of light to see by.

In any event, it was strange that—

A man screamed and Abbaas turned his head in that direction. “What is this?” He looked at his Blades. “Are the men carousing?”

They both shrugged and looked at each other.

The man screamed again, and others shouting. They were very noisy as they grunted and shouting like they were playing a drinking game, though the one man screaming certainly sounded frightened.

A hot rage came to him and his face heated. This is no time to be playing gamesI

And to think the men had smuggled alcohol with them. It was not allowed, and had they been back at the capital, they would be stripped of their Scorpion status and thrown in the dungeons.

Abbaas stamped across the sandy paths toward the commotion when suddenly more screaming in another near direction erupted. Men shouted.

“Cut it! Cut it!”

“Take it off him!”

“I can’t! It is too tight!”

Abbaas narrowed his eyes and ran, his heart suddenly leaping up inside his chest. Something was wrong. He turned the corner around a tent and something hit his foot. He bowled over and landed into the sand so quickly he could not raise his arm to keep from hitting the sand upon his chest and face.

He grunted, squirmed a little.

“Captain!” said Naazeer, and Zakaria came around as well. They turned him over.

“I am all right!” he said. They helped him up and he dusted off with a single swipe of his hands. “Something is wrong.” He reached for his scimitar hilt, grasped the blade and pulled it from his scabbard.

The two Scorpion Blades needed no command to do the same, as their eyes took on a sudden careful darting nature. These men were the elite of all the Scorpions—they knew their trade well.

More screaming erupted for various portions of the camp and a general outcry from the men had erupted into a riotous conflagration of angry and panicked voices.

The screaming he had been approached was within the tent ahead as men piled in from the front entrants.

The screaming continued as he approached.

“Cut it! Cut the materials!”

“What is happening?!”

Abbaas stepped forward toward the men, keeping a distance from the tent where the men inside, panicking and swiping about with their swords erupted. Through the screaming and the shouting, like a poisonous beast had rushed through camp and men were simultaneously avoiding it in fear while at the same time angrily commanding that it he backed to pieces, continued, he approached one Scorpion with wide eyes who stood still, watching in horror.

“What is happening?” Abbaas shouted.

The man barely saw him.

He grasped him by the shoulder. “I said what is happening here?!”

Before the man could answer, shouting erupted behind Abbaas and he whirled as more men jumped and ran, hacking at something with their swords.

The scorpion on the ground shrieked as something coiled about him in burnished colors with green splotches.

They looked like—

“Vines?”

The men hacked at them, cutting them as more pealed up and wrapped around them as well.

Abbaas glanced about, his heart hammering inside his chest. They were under attack. Under attack! Here!

He put his hands to his mouth, “RAISE THE ALARMS! RAISE THE ALARMS!”

Then he rushed forward and hacked at the vines entangling the panicked and screaming Scorpion, the man’s face red and his eyes wide and white. “Help me!” he cried. “Captain—help meeee!”

“I am, you fool!”

He hacked at the vines furiously as Naazeer and Zakaria helped, their movements faster, more trained and overall better than his own, but Abbaas was old compared to the two young elite soldiers.

They cut through the vines and the Scorpion stopped, though he continued to writhe and call out in utter panic. “Get them off him!” commanded Abbaas, and he and the other Scorpions that had helped them, hack at the vines pulled the loose stranded off of him.

Abbaas gasped for air and he glanced about. The Scorpion they had just saved was in tears as his friends helped him up and put a sword into his hand.

“IT’S COMING BACK!”

Abbaas whirled and saw the tips of new vines with strange sticky flours on them grow up and split. The men swung their scimitars in a defensive wall of blades, hacking and slacking at the vines.

They recoiled, turned and tried to avoid the strikes, and for the most part, was successful, but eventually it coiled back away quickly.

“Where—“ he asked. “Where was the other vine we cut off this man?”

“I do not know,” another said. “Did we not cut it?”

“It is not here,” said Zakaria. “It must have retreated like this one.”

A horn was suddenly blow, filling the camp with bristling shouts and metal clanging. The tent from which the vine had retreated under suddenly fluttered, then something from within pushed up into the canvas toward the sky. The tent ropes became taut and all the men shouted and bristled.

Then sand exploded outward as the stakes flew from the ground, whipping about violently as Abbaas covered his face and fell to the ground.

Everyone was screaming.

Something grabbed his leg and Abbaas shook his head, recovering from his sudden fall and the stinging sand inside his eyes.

“CAPTAIN ABBAAS!” Naazeer screamed.

He looked up and felt himself being dragged forward by the leg. The man’s hand around his ankle was nothing more than one of those monstrous vines with sticky flower-like polyps.

His heart nearly burst as the men hacked and slashed at the vine. Abbaas kicked and struggled, glancing about for something to grab hold of when he saw his scimitar in the sand. He took hold of it when his other free hand was grasped.

“I have you, Captain!” Zakaria shouted, and he pulled.

Groaning, Abbaas felt like his arm was going to pop out of its socket as the inexorable pull of the vine continued, forcing Zakaria’s feet to put deep trenches into the sand as he struggled and pulled.

“CUT THE VINES! CUT THE VINES! CUT THE VINES!”

Men did just that, when suddenly their sword arms were shunted up and away from the vines as more tendrils wrapped around their wrists and pulled their deadly blades away.

“IT KNOWS?!” one Scorpion shrieked, sounding more like a frightened child than an elite soldier.

Abbaas growled through his teeth. “Fight, you fool! ALL OF YOU! FIGHT!”

He screamed angrily, kicking and struggling as Zakaria pulled on his arm. The sound that came out of his mouth surprised him as the force of the Blade’s desperate attempt to keep him from being pulled in further, and that of the powerful grip of the vine, fought for control with him at the center.

He cried out in pain as his body was yanked and pulled, like a piece of meat between the maws of two beasts. “Cut… them!” he croaked.

Naazeer growled through his teeth and hacked at the vines with extreme force of will and fast, deft movements. His blade made metallic sounds as wet liquid spilled from the vines, green and oozing and sticky.

“I’ll save you, Captain!”

He screamed, hacking and slashing, and hope filled Abbaas and Zakaria continued pulling. The other Scorpions hacked at the vines, when another was pulled away.

All around them from every direction screaming and shouting and battle cries filled the night as rain covered them all.

A struggling pike man fell over, knocking the brazier that hissed over his body, his shrieks rising in pitch that no man should ever let out of his mouth, and yet he must as he was burned.

As the coals covered the vine body coiling about Abbaas’ ankle, he suddenly went taught, its grip loosening over his ankle as it writhed and slackened all at once.

“Fire!” he screamed. “Fire! Fire! USE FIRE!”

Naazeer stopped cutting at the vines and went to the hot smoking coals. A thinner tendril went toward him and he scrammed, slashing at it. He hit the vine and it recoiled.

Once he was safe, he moved to the smoking and hissing coals and kicked them onto the thicker vine enwrapping Abbaas’ leg, sweeping them onto it with quick movements of his foot.

The vine continued writhing, and suddenly uncoiled itself from him and retreated. Naazeer continued hacking at it, gasping and shouting and screaming.

Wasting no time, Abbaas got to his feet as Zakaria let go and helped him up. “Naazeer!” Abbaas called. “Naazeer!”

Zakaria called his name too, and he finally stopped swinging his sword at the empty sand. He looked at them, his face red and his eyes full of wild rage as spittle dripped down his chin.

He seemed to realize that he had been attacking nothing and calmed. He turned and stepped away from the tent as all three men moved instinctually to face each other with their backs.

The Scorpions who had been with them, who had been entangled, were now gone, and all around the camp men screamed and cried out in fear and anguish.

A fire had lit up some of the tents and a bright orange and yellow conflagration had appeared in the center of the camp.

Abbaas’s chest rose and fell faster than at any time in his life as he gasped for air, his heart a drumbeat inside his chest and in his ears. The grip on his gleaming scimitar splattered with green sticky sap weak.

He growled.

“FIGHT! USE FIRE!” He moved forward and his Blades followed as he found men who had not been entangled yet. He commanded them to follow him. “We must regroup! TOGETHER MEN!”

“Captain!” said Zakaria. “What is our plan?”

He breathed for a moment, gasping for air. “We coalesce into a fighting force—we help as many Scorpions as we can and we find the other Horde Captains!”

“Right!” growled Naazeer. “We’re with you, Captain Abbaas!”

Swallowing, he nodded. I only hope they have not been taken away…

“On my back!” he shouted, and the man surrounded him. “Fire!” he screamed, stretching out the word like a call to arms. “Use fire!”

The men did the same as he moved forward toward the struggling and shrieking Scorpions in his path on the way to toward their staging area.

From inside his tent, shaking like a leaf, Yasser turned his head to the sound of an angry man calling out for the use of fire as he and what evidently sounded like a group of warriors passed by.

He got up off his carpet and gripped the knife in his hand.

Swallowing, Yasser forced himself to leave his tent and join them, despite the looseness of his bowless.